the colo(u)rful story of English
Indulge yourself again in the never-ending and sometimes wacky tale of
a most remarkable language, as Canada’s Word Lady continues the story
of English right where she left off in our last issue.
y the 1400 s , English spelling was already a mess,
for many reasons. French clerks had tried to
transcribe Anglo-Saxon sounds for which
there was no letter in the French alphabet.
That originally pronounced but now-silent “gh”
in “taught,” for instance, which probably sounded to the
French like a phlegmy cat with a hairball problem. Other
sounds that had been pronounced in Anglo-Saxon, like
the “k” in “knight” and the “w” in “write,” became silent
as people found the consonant clusters too hard to say.
Some of our spellings were still reflecting Old French pronunciations that were no longer in use, as in “guarantee.”
To exacerbate the problem, all the vowels changed their
sounds starting in about 1400, while the spelling remained
stuck reflecting the old pronunciation.
But the Renaissance made things even worse. An upsurge
in interest in classical Latin and Greek led to a realization
that many English words had their ultimate origins in those
languages. But people weren’t content with just noticing that.
They thought it should be reflected in the spelling. (Surely
they weren’t trying to show off their superior knowledge?)
Just think how much more
enticing a ‘French glamour’
class would be than a ‘French
grammar’ class! “School” is a perfect example. The highly cultured
ancient Greeks loved spending their leisure time (skhole)
hanging out with Socrates and Plato discussing philosophy,
so their word meaning “leisure” gradually came to apply
to philosophical discussions and then to the places where
they happened. By the time the word got to English via
Latin (one of the very few words the Anglo-Saxons borrowed directly from Latin before the Norman Conquest),
it was written scol. In the Middle Ages it was pronounced
“skole.” To reflect the long “o” sound, the scribes decided
to double the letter “o” in the spelling. When the pronunciation changed to “skule,” the spelling didn’t keep
step. Then some know-it-all busybody came along in
the Renaissance and said, “Look, it’s got an ‘h’ in Latin
and Greek, so it should have an ‘h’ in English!” There it
(like many of our other silent letters) has been ever since,
38 Professionally Speaking | March 2010
never pronounced, serving no good purpose but to make
English learners’ lives miserable.
This mania went on for centuries. The most extreme
example is the word “ptarmigan,” which you might think
derives from some northern aboriginal language in Canada.
But in fact it comes from a Scots Gaelic word, tarmachan,
meaning basically “grumbler” or “croaker” because the
bird makes a croaking sound. Around 1700 some meddlesome person noticed that the Greeks had a word ptero
(feather), and even more observantly that ptarmigan had
feathers. Deciding that the two were connected (and conveniently overlooking the total absence of ptarmigans in
Greece), he stuck a “p” at the beginning of the word to
reflect its “Greek” origin. Thank goodness he didn’t get a
hold of the Canada … pgoose.
Also very popular in the 1400s and 1500s was the wholesale borrowing of words from Latin and Greek, not least of
all in education, because the study of these languages was
the basis of education.
One of these words was “grammar,” which, jawdroppingly improbable though it may seem, is the origin of
the word “glamour.” “Grammar” comes ultimately from
the Greek word gramma (a letter of the alphabet or something written). In theory, “grammar” in the Middle Ages
could be the study of any written language, but in fact it
was the study of the only language that was taught using the
analysis of structures: Latin. People probably weren’t even
aware that languages like English, French and German had
something that could be called grammar (many students
are probably wishing that we could go back to those innocent days). Since “grammar” meant the study of Latin, it
(and its Scottish variant, “glamour”) also referred to the
knowledge of those who belonged to the Latin-educated
learned class, knowledge thought by most people to include
magic, astrology and the occult. Several hundred years later,
thanks to the huge popularity of the 19th-century Scottish
novelist Sir Walter Scott, “glamour” in its magical sense
became widespread, soon taking on connotations of magical beauty and finally a kind of highly refined attractiveness.
Just think how much more enticing a “French glamour”
class would be than a “French grammar” class!
Another good example of a Greek borrowing from the
1380s is “pedagogue.” The ancient Greeks had slaves who
were responsible for escorting the young scions of wealthy
families to and from school. The Greek word for “boy”
was paidos, and “lead” was agogos, so a “boy leader” was
a “pedagogue.” Remember that lovely Anglo-Saxon word
feature
for “schoolmaster”: magatoga? It was a literal translation
of this term (magu = boy, toga = leader); no doubt prestigeconscious teachers felt that a Greek word was much more
impressive than an Anglo-Saxon one. Teachers nowadays
are of course less full of themselves.
Also borrowed from Greek in the late Renaissance was
“gymnasium,” literally a place where you get naked (gymnos in Greek). If only those reluctant phys ed students knew.
In German, a Gymnasium is a high school but even more
lacking in titillation.
At about the same time, we borrowed the Latin word for
a race course for chariots, derived from the word for “run,”
currere. But the Scottish universities that adopted curriculum used it not for horse races but for a prescribed course
of study. It is perhaps unfortunate (if telling) that they chose
an image of running around in circles.
Another source of words in the Renaissance – many of
them scientific and mathematical – was Arabic, because
through the Dark Ages much of the mathematical learning of the ancient world survived only in Arabic civilization.
Europe had to learn it from the Arabic mathematicians who
were living in Spain at the time. In Arabic, the definite article (“the”) is al, so al at the beginning of an English word is
usually a sign that it comes from Arabic: for instance, “alcohol,” “alcove,” and “algebra.” In Arabic, al-jabr means “the
reunion of broken parts” or “bone-setting.” In fact, when
the word “algebra” was first used in English in the 1500s, it
meant the surgical treatment of broken bones. How on earth
did it come to designate a branch of mathematics? The mathematical sense came from the title of a 9th-century Arabic
mathematical treatise, Ilm al-jabr wa’l mukabal, which
meant “the science of restoring what is missing and equating like with like.” And when you think about it, solving an
algebraic equation is like taking something that’s broken into
pieces and putting it back together again. The book was by a
mathematician called Al-Kwarizmi, whose name has given
us the word “algorithm.”
By the 18th century, English had pretty much settled
down into the language we know today, especially the
spelling. This was largely due to two great lexicographers: Samuel Johnson, whose dictionary was published
in England in 1755, and Noah Webster, whose American
Spelling Book was published in the US in 1783, followed
by a dictionary in 1808.
The differences between British and American spelling
stem from these publications. Take the famous “colour.”
In Latin, the word was color. In medieval French, the pronunciation of the second syllable – sort of halfway between
“lower” and “lure” – was reflected by spelling the word colur
or colour (which covered all eventualities). We could have
just stuck with the Anglo-Saxon word “hue,” but true to the
English mania for synonyms, and little knowing that several
March 2010 | Professionally Speaking 39
the colo(u)rful story of English
centuries later Canadians would be arguing bitterly about
its spelling as a reflection of our national identity, Englishspeakers borrowed “colour” from the French. Then the
Renaissance came along, and, as you well know by now,
that meant we had to reflect the Latin spelling, so color
came back. Both spellings co-existed until Johnson and
Webster put their lexicographical feet down, each opting
for a different spelling.
Webster may have been inspired by political motives to
do the contrary of what the British were doing, but he was
also interested in consistency: Why “colour” but “director,”
“honour” but “honorary” (yes, even the British spell “honorary” that way), “centre” but “enter”? “Centre” had been
the medieval French spelling (and is still the French spelling), but from the 1500s to the 1700s “center” was more
common in Britain. Nonetheless, Samuel Johnson opted
for “centre,” almost guaranteeing that Webster would stick
with “center.”
The roots of Canadian English (other than Newfoundland
English, which derives from the dialects of southwest
England and Ireland) are in the speech of the United
Empire Loyalists who fled the United States during and
after the Revolution, about the time of Webster’s spelling
book. At its origins, then, Canadian English was American
English. This common origin explains why American
spelling persists in Canada. In the 19th century, vast numbers of people from the British Isles were encouraged to
settle in British North America to ward off any lurking
nefarious American influence. As British English was the
prestige version of the language, British spellings started
to be imposed. But they have never completely supplanted
the American ones. Canadians feel strongly about “-our”
words as a handy and inexpensive way of proving to the
world that we are not American, but are less zealous about
the double-l British versions of “traveller,” “dialling” and
so on, which in the last 20 years have pretty much lost out
to the American single-l “traveler” and “dialing.”
Our American-British dual personality also shows up in
our pronunciation. Canadians sound more like Americans
than like the British, but there are some words where some
of us opt for the British pronunciation over the American
one. Take the word “herb.” From about 1200, when it was
Samuel Johnson opted for
‘centre,’ almost guaranteeing
that Webster would stick with
‘center.’ adopted from French, till about 1500, the word for parsley
and suchlike was “erb,” with no “h” to pronounce. The
Renaissance busybodies added the “h” to the spelling
because the original Latin word had been herba. Why did
the British start pronouncing it? It was the fault of people
like you: teachers. In the late 19th century the introduction
of compulsory education meant that everyone became literate, realized there was an “h” on “herb” and started to
pronounce it. But Americans retained the older “h”-less
pronunciation (as we all did, after all, with words like “honour” and “hour”). As with spelling, so with pronunciation:
Many Canadians remained true to their American linguistic heritage, while others adopted the prestigious British
version, so that Canadians are now split down the middle
on the pronunciation of “herb” (as they are on “lieutenant”
and “schedule” as well).
There is much more to distinguish Canadian English than
a few spelling and pronunciation variants, and the language
has continued to evolve since the 18th century. But we
have no room to explore any further. Up to you now to dig
into the fascinating stories behind our words and see what
they reveal about our past and to encourage your students
(remember, the word “student” means “eager, zealous and
diligent person”) to do the same.
ps
Katherine Barber, known from media appearances and speaking engage-
ments as Canada’s Word Lady, was Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian
Oxford Dictionary. Visit her at katherinebarber.blogspot.com.
40 Professionally Speaking | March 2010